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February 28, 2014

We throw lots of parties in our
apartment, and seating is always an issue. We had nearly two dozen people
at our New Year's party in our one bedroom apartment. To help (just a
little) with more seating in the apartment, I decided to build a low bench with
nice midcentury styling.

I found tapered legs online so I wouldn't even
have to build legs! So simple. I bought a simple board, stained it
to match my teak furniture in the apartment, and tossed the legs on. I
also sewed a cushion so it will be a bit more comfortable for our guests to
enjoy. I also designed it so that it was the perfect height for under our
front windows. So the bench can sit underneath them and doesn't have to
move every time we want to open or close the windows!

February 25, 2014

After such a sweet year working with cakes, I tried my hand at something a bit more challenging (especially in an apartment!)

2013-
Woodworking (building small pieces)

This
might have been the hardest one so far to work on.I live in a rented apartment, so there isn't
much room for changes or power tools.Though in this year alone, I was able to make a new headboard, build a
bench, refinish a coffee table, and stained new bedside tables.

The new
headboard was a birthday gift to my husband, though it wasn't much of a
surprise.We were moving a week after
his birthday, and I didn't want to have to move the old headboard with us.Our apartment is mostly mid-century in
decoration because of grandparent hand-me-downs and my taste in decor.Though my husband's design taste is what I
like to call "Western Chic."He loves the rugged elements of the West, but doesn't want to see spurs,
cowboy boots, and animal hides laying around.I found this simple headboard design on Pinterest.

All you have to do is take a couple of wood
boards, stain them, and drill them into your wall.Well... that's a problem for us.Living in a rental, I can't drill into the
wall.So I took another two pieces of
wood and drilled those perpendicular to the four front boards.My husband picked out a rugged stain, and we
bought extra so one day I could build and stain new nightstands to match.

February 20, 2014

Last post, I talked about my 2011 resolution to learn painting. In 2012, I moved onto cake decorating!

After a
few years of feeling unfulfilled at my job, I was looking for something to
occupy my free time that I love to do.A
friend of my recommended that I bake.I've always loved to bake, but didn't do it that often.I don't need all those calories sitting
around on my counter!

So I opened up a
little side business to make cakes, cupcakes, and other desserts (usually pies
that my husband requests) for friends.Fondant is a huge design element in fancy cakes that I had zero
experience with.

I started simple...
with a Doctor Who cake.Ok.Maybe not so simple.

Though, now I can make cakes with fondant or
buttercream that look unique and gorgeous.The highlight of this past year was making the birthday cake for my
husband's grandmother's 100 birthday celebration!

My interest in baking also gave me the idea
to put together a cookbook with all of my favorite recipes.Now I have all of the best recipes, even a
few that I've created from scratch myself, in one convenient place.And in 2014, I have two weddings along with
numerous birthdays and other celebrations!

Next up: I'll chat about my 2013 resolution... Woodworking! That was a tough year.

February 17, 2014

I don't
like New Year's resolutions.I know, me and
millions of other people.But I am
always craving to learn something new.So each year, I try to learn how to do something that I had minimal
knowledge of before.They don't always
start at the beginning of the year, so there is some overlap on projects.And of course I'm still using some of my new
talents today!I've only been doing it
for a few years, essentially since I left college.I don't know if I had anything in mind in
2010... moving to a new state maybe?

2011- Painting
(furniture and walls)

My big
projects for painting included painting all of our mismatch bedroom furniture
and painting a striped accent wall in the apartment.

All of
our bedroom furniture had been hand-me-downs and none of the pieces were from
the same set.Even our nightstand tables
didn't match... one isn't even an nightstand.I sanded, painted, and poly'ed all four pieces so they'd look
similar.They looked pretty good for a
few years, though I have been slowly swapping them out for better pieces.

Our old
apartment had a gigantic wall that was pretty bare since it was a rental.Luckily, I got the ok from the landlord to
paint one of the walls, as long as I painted it back when we moved out.(Surprisingly not as hard as I thought it
would be.)

I painted the wall with a
flat paint in burgundy.After it dried,
I taped stripes on the wall in a varying pattern.I didn't like it when all of the stripes on
accent walls were the same distance from one another.I wanted something more interesting!So I did large and small stripes.

Once I was taped, I painted the same burgundy
color in a semi-gloss paint on the wall.After a few coats on both layers, I took off the tape and had a
beautiful striped wall.Since the paint
was so dark, I thought we'd have trouble painting over it, but it only took one
layer of base and one layer of paint to completely cover!

February 14, 2014

I
have a plant addiction.If I had better
lighting in my apartment, I think that every surface would be covered in
plants.

Though, with all the plants I
have, none of the planters match.I
searched high and low for an idea on how to make my mini garden look more
cohesive.

Most of the responses I found
online said I should spray paint them.Two problems there:You can't buy
spray paint in Chicago and there are already plants in my planters!I don't think they'd like a coating of paint.I next thought about wrapping them in
fabric.Since my planters are not simple
shapes, then covering them in fabric would just lead to lots of puckering and
heartache.Then I thought about using
twine.It would add more rustic elements
into our home too!

I bought jute twine
and used strong craft glue to put it on.Unfortunately it takes a lot of time to wrap twine around a
planter.This would have been much
easier if the planter was empty.But the
end result is great!I covered three
planters like this, though one of them cracked about a month later so I had to
toss it out.

February 11, 2014

One
of my bigger projects of last year was working on my own personal
cookbook.I have lots of baking recipes
that are my favorites, but they were bookmarked and saved in random places with
an assortments of notes written all over.So in an effort to organize it all, I put it together as a cookbook that
I could enjoy, as well as my family and friends.

All of the photos came from previous projects
that I had worked on.You can easily
have your book printed many places online, but the place I choose was Photobook
America.They had great layouts, so I
didn't have to do all the design work myself and even had a few already geared
towards cookbooks.I had it printed like
a paperback, which made it look a lot nicer than a normal photobook.I have gotten so much use out of my new
cookbook!I even gave out a few as gifts
for the holidays!

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About Me

I live in Chicago with my amazing husband and an adorable deaf boxer, Zoey. I’m sure you’ll see lots of her around here. I have an education degree that is burning a hole in my pocket, so I have to find ways to keep busy. I always have a project going on and am always looking for new things to try out, and you'll get to see my attempts (successful and not) at sewing, cooking, home decor, and more!